Darkness
by Yakosh
Summary: Ruby was once an innocent, eternally cheerful little girl. Then darkness came, and though she thought she'd gotten away, it will forever haunt her. And eventually, it will return... Ruby has a bit of a darker past, and hence, OOC. Ladybug pairing. T for minor gore and suggestive themes, swearing. [Hiatus]


**A new story. God dammit. At least this one has a non-OC main character unlike the 3 or 4 unposted RWBY stories I've written with a few thousand words each. I write one long chapter and then can't find any inspiration for the second.**

 **I _plan_ to make this story get fairly dark, but that won't be for a little while and I might just fail.**

 **Rated T for possible gore and/or suggestive themes. And swearing.**

 **Probably Ladybug (main), Sloths (or Renora, whatever, I think Sloths is better), Arkos (can somebody explain this to me), and possibly Freezerburn (not too likely because I'm not a huge fan of this ship).**

 **Out of** **curiosity, can everyone tell me their favorite characters? Doesn't need to be one and you can have like 2nd and 3rd place if you want. I'll go first (this is as characters, not as people, otherwise none of the bad guys would make the list).**

 **1st place: Ruby, Qrow, Ozpin, and Summer (though it feels kinda wrong to put a character we know next-to-nothing about in 1st place).**

 **2nd place: Blake, Yang, and Raven.**

 **3rd place: Weiss, Winter, Glynda, Dr. Oobleck, Penny, Neo, Ren, Nora, Pyrrha, Velvet, Coco, and Roman.**

 **4th place: Adam, Jaune, General Ironwood, Taiyang, Cinder, Junior, and Twins.**

 **Of course you don't need to give this many. If I had to pick a single favorite, I'd probably go for Ruby.**

* * *

 **(3rd person limited, Ruby Rose)**

The door of the dust shop known as From Dust Till Dawn opens and 5 men walk in. In the lead is a man with black pants, a white coat with large opening collar and red on the inside, a black shirt, and a grey cloth around his neck and black gloves that went about halfway up his forearm, over his jacket. He had a black bowler hat with a horizontal red stripe around the base of the hat, just above the rim and a black feather on the left, sticking out backwards, a large cigar in his mouth, and green eyes. In his right hand he held a grey cane with a red band just below the semi-circular handle and a red design at the bottom.

The 4 men were all dress identically in black hats, black suits with red ties under them, black pants, black gloves, and black shoes. They were wearing red sunglasses, matching the red ties.

Ruby could vaguely remember that the man was a wanted criminal named Roman Torchwick.

They approached the cashier where the old man who owns the shop stood, surveying the dust crystals.

One of the goons—goon 1—pulls out a gun, causing the old man who owns the shop to raise his hands and beg from them to just take his money and leave.

"Calm down, we're not here for your money," he says to the man, then turns to his goons and says, "Grab the dust."

One of the goons places a briefcase down and opens it, revealing 10 empty cans. Each of the 4 goons grabs a can and walks over to one of the dust dispensers, filling them up.

One of the goons—goon 2— sees a schoolgirl in a red cloak, facing away from him and looking at some stand. He draws his sword and walks over towards her.

"Put your hands in the air!"

She ignores him. "Do you want to die or something? Hands up!"

Once more she ignores him. He walks over to her and grabs her shoulder. She turns towards him, causing her hood to fall down and revealing a pair of red headphones on the pale crimsonette's face. Goon 2 points a finger at his ear and the girl pulls her headphones down.

"I said, put your hands in the air!" he says.

"Are you... _robbing me?_ " she asks.

" _YES!_ " he says exasperated and annoyed.

"Oh..." she says in an understanding tone. Then, with no warning and in a motion too fast for the naked eye to see, the man is thrown backwards and slams into the wall beneath a window.

Goon 1 and Roman look over. "Go check it out," Roman orders.

Goon 1 walks over and points his gun at the girl.

Before he can say anything, both he and the girl fly through the window above goon 2, the brutally using the goon as a shield from the broken glass and lands on the road, him next to her.

She takes her scythe off her back, still in it's compact from, and unfolds it, twirling it round and smashing it point first into the road, pointing at the shop.

Roman and goons 1, 3, 4 and look out the broken window.

"What are you waiting for? Get 'er," he says in an annoyed tone. The 3 goons rush out and the first one is met with a scythe to the face. Well, the blunt end anyway.

She spins round and using her semblance, appears in front of goon 3 who was also armed with a sword in a burst of rose petals and smashing the blunt end of her scythe into his side, sending him flying and knocking his head against the concrete, hard. His under-developed aura protecting him from a lethal blow, but not protecting him from being knocked out.

 _3 down. 2 to go._

The last goons starts shooting at her with some form of automatic rifle and she activates her semblance, slowing the world to a crawl. Well, everything but the bullets, the bullets moved at a speed comparable to a sprinting person. She weaved between them, running straight at the man, and deactivates her semblance right in front of him, not wanting to waste on a blow since she was trying to limit her strength anyway to avoid killing him.

She swings the blunt end of her scythe up, hitting him right in the nuts before bringing it around again and smacking his head down, dropping him to the floor unconscious.

"Truly worth every cent," Roman mutters.

"As much as I love to stick around Red, _this_ is where we part ways," Roman says and raises his cane. The end of the cane flips up, apparently a sight, and he pulls a trigger on the handle, firing an explosive dust projectile at the red girl.

She leaps into the air to avoid it and it explodes against the ground beneath her, raising a shower of debris and smoke. As it clears the girl looks around for her opponent, finding him climbing up a ladder on a nearby parking garage.

Activating her semblance, she falls into pursuit. In a single jump she easily jumps up onto the roof, effected by gravity about as much as a low-caliber pistol bullet would be at near point-blank range. In other words, not a lot.

She leaps forward, smashing her scythe's blunt end into the criminal and sending him flying forward- right into the open door of a rising bullhead. _Shit._

"End of the line, Red!" he says, throwing a brilliant red—signifying highly refined fire dust—dust crystal at the girl and raising his cane. Realizing what was about to happen she jumps back just as he fires, detonating the crystal and creating a massive explosion.

The girl crosses her arms in front of her and closes her eyes, hoping that her aura would block the part of the explosion that gets to her since she didn't make it far enough away, however the blast doesn't come. She opens her eyes to see a female huntress in a white blouse and short, tight black skirt which went up to her stomach and down just below her thighs and had buttons running along the front about the waist, she also wore black tights beneath and had long blond hair in a bun on the back of her head and small round-rimmed glasses, likely just for show behind which could be see bright green—almost lime—eyes. She had a black on the outside, purple on the inside cape with a jagged bottom edge and a strange orange design on the outside on her back and a riding crop in her right hand, held out in front of her like a wand.

In front of her was a large purple circle with stance designs which apparently blocked the explosion. The girl instantly leapt to the side and converted her scythe to its sniper rifle form, opening fire on the vehicle's closer engine, attempting to destroy it. The reinforced metal took a few shots, but was unable to stand up to the incredibly accurate attacks which were repeatedly striking the same point with high power, armor piercing, fire dust and aura infused rounds flying out of the small girls sniper rifle at a rate far too high for the accuracy.

The huntress wasn't doing nothing either, barraging the craft with purple projectiles which, unfortunately, didn't seem to do much.

A round from Ruby finally pierced through the hull of the engine and exploded inside causing the engine to turn off and explode a moment later. The craft fell on the side towards them and rose on the other, flipping it sideways and propelling it onto the roof they were on, crashing it upside down, causing a subsequent explosion and the craft to crash under its own weight. Thankfully the reinforced concrete garage was able to stand up to the punishment and while the surface was damaged, the structure held firm.

The red girl switched her gun to scythe mode and approached the craft, trained huntress in tow.

A semblance assisted swing cut through the craft's hull and the two entered. As they entered they saw Roman on the floor. Ruby pokes at him with the non-scythe end of her scythe and when she gets no reaction says, "Let's find the pilot."

The two move the cockpit, cutting through the wall above the door. In the room was a woman who immediately reacted to their entry. Orange designs appeared on her red shirt and a circle of fire appear beneath the intruders' feet. The two jumped back to avoid the explosion and when the smoke clears, the woman is gone.

Returning to where Roman lay, they find nobody. Ruby turns into a burst of rose petals, rushing out of the crashed craft and looking around, seeing him running for the ramp down, she rushes at him, slamming her knee into his back, shattering what was left of his aura and throwing him to the floor, knocking his head against said floor and knocking him out.

Her scythe collapses in its smallest form and she returns it to her back, picking up Roman and slinging him over her shoulder with aura-assisted strength and carried him over to where the huntress was cleaning up the mess she'd created with the help of her semblance. _That's a pretty versatile semblance._

* * *

"What you did was incredibly reckless and dangerous, you put yourself and others at risk!" the huntress scolded the younger girl.

"What others? There was nobody in that garage or in the streets around it. Besides, they started it," the girl answered.

"And how do you _know_ there was nobody in that garage?" the huntress asks.

The girl thinks for a moment, contemplating whether to tell the truth or bullshit her way out, eventually deciding on telling the truth. Eventually being about half a second later.

"No auras inside the building," Ruby answers. An expression of shock appears on the huntress's face, likely surprised by the fact that someone so young knew aura sensing.

The woman sighs. "Please, just be more careful next time. The amount of money wasted if the bullhead crashing destroyed that garage would have been enormous."

"The building was made of highly reinforced concrete, the weight of the bullhead—even at that speed—is practically nothing to such a material," the girl objects, not happy with being scolded.

"Either way, there is someone who would like to speak you," she says, somewhat annoyed. _I wonder who?_

In the door walks none other than Ozpin, headmaster at Beacon, the greatest hunter training school on Remnant. _Well... that's not who I expected. I expected something more along the lines of a police officer asking what a kid was doing out so late. Speaking of late... I hope this is quick, even I need sleep... as much as I hate it._

"Hello Miss Rose," the man said, sitting down across from the girl with a plate of cookies which he pushes in front of her. _'My only weakness, cookies.'_

Still, despite such sarcastic thoughts, she did love cookies and she takes one of the cookies, eating it slowly, then the next, and then the next after that, and then one more, and then she basically ate the whole plate.

"So, Miss Rose, where did you learn to do _that_?" he asks, showing a video of her beating up the henchmen with practically zero effort and taking down the bullhead with numerous accurate shots.

"I learned at Signal Academy," the girl answers, telling part of the truth.

"And why did you go to Signal?"

"To be a huntress," she answers, once more, part of the truth. Most of it, in this case.

"And why do you want to be a huntress?"

"To protect those I love... and those who can't protect themselves," she answers. Again, part of the truth.

"I see. Do you know who I am?" the headmaster asks.

The girl looks at him like he just insulted her and answers with a question, "Who doesn't?"

He looks at her expectantly. "You're the Headmaster of Beacon, Ozpin," she answers.

"Well, Miss Rose, what do you think of a place at Beacon this semester. Or rather, tomorrow," the headmaster asks. The girl looked surprised, though probably not as much as she should be. To get into the greatest school in the world 3 years early at 15 was very impressive.

"Thank you," she says with some rare enthusiasm.

Afterwards, the headmaster and his assistant leave and a police officer enters. _Great. Is it too late to kill myself?_

She sits down across from Ruby and looks at a clip board in her hand. _Who the fuck still uses those?_

"Hello Miss Rose, I'd like to ask you a few questions regarding the 'little scuffle' earlier tonight," the police officer says.

The girl sighs. "I don't have much of a choice to answer the questions you already know the answer to, do I?" the girl asks.

"While this may be just formality, formalities are important young woman, treat it as a lesson in life," the police officer says, annoyed.

"Fiiiiine, let's get this over with already," the girl says, far more annoyed.

* * *

"I can't believe you made it into Beacon early!" Yang says to her younger sister, extremely excited.

"Sometimes I think you forget," Ruby says ambiguously.

"I try to," Yang says, instantly far less cheerful. However she does recover quickly, saying, "You're gonna be the bee's knees!"

Ruby ignores her louder, more social sister in focus of more introverted things. Like reading a book. Or playing video games. Or somehow both at the same time?

Yang looks over Ruby's—who had sat down—shoulder and says, "It amazes me how you are able to read your book and play a fast-paced video game that supposedly requires near-continuos attention _at the same time_ and still be good at it."

Her sister once more ignores her, dispatching a gigantic monster in a video game where she was known as the Red Queen, though her username was actually just Ruby. She was known as the Red Queen because she was dressed in all red and an army of monsters followed her around because she'd discovered some taming mechanic in the game and hasn't told anyone how to do it.*

She was also known as the Red Queen because a trail of blood followed her wherever she went in the game... which also made her the being with the highest player—or rather, player organization—bounty in the game, above in the scariest currently known monsters.

"Ruby. You could stand to stop playing that game and look out the window or something, you don't often get to see views like this and you can play whenever," Yang says.

Ruby sighs. She knew her sister wouldn't stop bugging her if she didn't at least take a short break, so she logs out and gets up, putting her scroll away and looking out the window. _Gotta admit, the view's pretty nice._

For the students who had forgotten entertainment for the flight, there was a TV in the ship, which at the moment was displaying the news.

 _"Notorious dust-thief Roman Torchwick was apprehended late last night by a young huntress trainee from Signal Academy,"_ the host says, footage of the fight playing, showing Ruby beat up Roman and his goons, causing everyone watching the TV to turn towards Ruby, who manages to shrink and hide behind Yang from people watching from all different angles.

* * *

"Watch where you're going! You could have caused a disaster!" the white girl yells at the girl standing in front of her.

"But I didn't."

"But you could have! If you'd taken one more step backwards before falling, you would have fallen right on a loud of dust!"

" _But I didn't._ While I did stumble, I was perfectly aware of the crates behind me and their positions and thus had no plans of falling on them, so just shut up already princess."

"Ho-"

"It's heiress actually. Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, the largest dust producer and supplier in the world-" a black haired girl with a bow says, approaching the scene.

Ruby turns to her, looking at her cat like eyes and the bow which twitched ever so slightly, slightly enough that must people would think it was their imagination or miss it entirely. _A faunus? Judging from the eyes, a cat._

"Finally, some recognition," the heiress says exasperated, only to be cut off as the cat continues.

"Also known for its poor working conditions and questionable business practices."

"How da- whatever," the heiress says, unhappily and angrily stomping away.

"Thanks," Ruby says to the cat standing next to her.

"No problem, always nice to put a Schnee in their place." though the last part was said considerably quieter, it only served to cement that she was a faunus.

"Do you want to go together?" Ruby asks, knowing that 'making a friend' would get Yang off her back for a while and that the girl would probably be quiet enough, given the book in her hand. Plus they might share some interests, though she couldn't see the title of her book.

"Uh..." the girl hesitates.

"We don't actually have to talk or anything, just as long as my sister thinks I'm making friends and leaves me alone," Ruby says, picking up her own book off the ground.

The cat sighs and agrees.

"Oh right. I think you're supposed to know your friends' names. I'm Ruby, you?" Ruby asks.

The cat can't help but chuckle at how the girl talked about it and says, "I'm Blake, nice to meet you... I suppose."

The two walk to the hall and Yang yells to Ruby, "Over here, I saved you a spot!" _Really? We're all standing and there's plenty of space practically everywhere so I'm not sure in what sense you saved me a spot, but okay, whatever._

Ruby walks over to her sister, Blake following her because that spot was no worse than any other. Ruby puts on her headphones to block out all the sound. Smart noise cancellation headphones.

"You made a friend!" Yang says.

"I'm trying to read," Ruby says in an annoyed tone, trying to keep her attention off the crowd she was in. _I hate crowds. Though headphones do make it better._

"What's the point of friends if you don't-"

"We're... uh... reading buddies... sure," Ruby says, turning on some music. Blake can't help but chuckle at the sisters' interaction.

Eventually Glynda appears on the podium and Ruby removes her headphones, being assailed by the huge amount of noise. _God I hate this. Please be over soon._

 _Just focus on her and ignore the noise. Focus. Keep it together Ruby._

"You alright Ruby?" Yang asks.

Ruby just nods, calming her breathing and heart rate. Not believing her sister, Yang grabs her hand, squeezing it. "Is she alright," Blake asks.

"She'll be fine. She just can't stand crowds. That's why she always carries around those headphones," Yang answers.

Professor Goodwitch gives her speech, and then Professor Ozpin gives his, and then Glynda gives some instructions and by the end Ruby is practically having a panic attack and sprints away from the gathering and finds a nice, quiet, secluded tree with a view of the Emerald Forest.

Calming her breathing, she puts on some music, and takes out her book. _I have a few hours till I'm supposed to do anything._

* * *

"Hey Ruby!" someone calls from the ground. _Blake? What's she doing here._

"What?" she asks quietly. _Cats have good hearing, right? She can hear me._

"Are you alright?" she asks, climbing part way up the tree with great agility and positioning herself around level with Ruby.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Ruby asks, lifting her eyes from her book.

"Well you did run off on the verge of a panic attack and vanish for a couple hours," Blake points out. _And you have enough information to know I'm fine. She's just being nice, so be nice yourself Ruby._

"I'm alright," Ruby answers.

"Mind if I join you? You certainly found a nice tree," Blake asks.

Ruby shrugs. "Sure."

* * *

 _Initiation time, finally._

Smirking as the platform beneath her feet launches her into the air, Ruby gets ready for landing. By using the recoil from repeatedly firing her sniper rifle and then swinging herself around a tree branch with her scythe, cutting it in the process.

Dropping down to the ground, she proceeds to head towards the temple. _Potential partners would be Yang_ _and Blake... I'm not sure I want to be partnered with Yang, she's too... overprotective. So I guess that leaves Blake, I think we could get along... at least if we tried. I'll keep an eye out for her aura._

Running the through the forest at top non-semblance speed—which was plenty fast anyway—she hears a growl. _Great. Grimm, 'just what I wanted to see right now.'_

Skidding to a stop she takes out her scythe and locates the grimm. _Beowolves, 7 of them. This'll be quick._

She uses her semblance to practically appear in front of one, decapitating it in a single blow. Because attacks while her semblance was active took off huge chunks of her aura, she avoided doing so.

She pushes off the ground, slicing downwards and cutting one in half down the middle. _2 down, 5 to go._

Over the next few seconds, what used to be 5 beowolves looking at a girl turns into some black mist floating over a rose petals and a girl. _Meh. Boring._

Ruby puts away her scythe and returns to her search. For Blake—or at least Yang—and for the temple which had the relics they needed to retrieve.

Well she basically knew where the temple was, it wasn't too hard to see it from the air.

Sensing someone's Aura in the distance, she focused on it. _Blake? I guess things can go right even for me._

Heading towards Blake at top speed she almost doesn't notice the grimm she runs past. Almost. And why not just run past the grimm? Because then it will chase you, attracting all the grimm it passes in the process, so when you do finally stop, you have all the grimm within a kilometer of your path to fight.

Skidding to a stop, she uses her semblance to dash to the side towards the lone ursa. _Now die._

Appearing next to the grimm in a burst of rose petals, the girl swings her scythe downwards, ruthlessly decapitating the grimm.

A short while of running later, Ruby sees Blake finish off some grimm.

"Hello," she says quietly to the girl in front of her who had just ripped her weapon from the back of an ursa.

"Hey Ruby. Guess we're partners now," Blake says.

"Let's go," Ruby says.

"Do you know where to go?"

"I think I saw the temple on the way down," Ruby answers.

* * *

"The relics are... chess pieces?" Blake questions.

"Very big chess pieces. And only a little more than half the set, only one of each piece of each color," Ruby comments.

"I guess we can take any one of them?" Blake says.

"How about this one?" Ruby asks, picking up the black knight.

"I don't see any reason why not," Blake says.

"Okay, then lets hurry back, I can't imagine that speed isn't part of the grade," Ruby says.

Then Yang fell from the sky, screaming woohoo all the way and using Ember Celica to slow down, landing and then falling on her back.

"Uh... hey Yang..." Ruby says.

"Hey Ruby!" Yang says from the ground before jumping up to her feet.

And then an ursa ran into the clearing, only to collapse face first as a blast of purple lightning exploded on its back, a girl jumping off and looking around it, going so far as to poke it. "Aww, it's broken."

"No shit, you just killed it," Ruby mutters.

"Nora... please... never... do that... again," a boy running out of the forest behind her says through heavy breaths.

However by the time he finishes, the girl was no longer standing next to the already dissolving grimm and was holding up the black rook, singing, "I'm queen of the castle~ I'm queen of the castle~"

Then vomit boy slams into a tree. Then Weiss falls off of an ancient nevermore, screaming something angry at Yang, who nonchalantly replies, "I _did_ say jump."

Then Weiss is caught out of the air by Jaune, who decides to kindly act as her landing cushion.

"Yang, don't tell me your partner is Miss Princess over here," Ruby says.

"Unfortunately, she is," Yang answers, walking over and grabbing the white knight.

"I heard that you brute!" Weiss yells.

"That's three quarters of the point," Yang answers.

Then Pyrrha runs into the clearing, chased by a large death stalker.

"Well... now we can all die together," Ruby says calmly.

"Ruby... can you not be so dark?" Yang asks Ruby.

"I'm not being dark, I'm just being realistic," Ruby deadpans. Everyone present looks at her. "I'm joking."

"You need to work on your humor," Yang says.

"Well we do have two ancient grimm of fairly dangerous varieties trying to kill us, so she is being fairly realistic with her assessment of our chances, even if it was meant as a joke," Blake points out.

"Not if we don't fight them, the goal is grab a partner and a relic and get back, nothing about killing grimm," Ruby says.

"Run and live, now that's a plan I can get behind," Jaune says.

"Well then, I'll distract the death stalker which happens to be blocking our path and then you guys make a run for it," Ruby says.

"Wait, are you really going to fight that thing alone?" Blake asks.

"I said _distract_ , with my semblance it'll be easy," Ruby says, scythe unfolding in her hand. She proceeds to take off at a sprint towards the death stalker.

As she runs, her scythe switches to rifle mode and she jumps into the air, shooting the death stalker in the eye mid-jump. It lets out a roar of pain and scuttles towards her, its tail lunging forward. In response, Ruby stands still. And then a fraction of a second before it hits, she disappears in a burst of rose petals, nothing but a red blur to signify that she had moved, and reappears several feet to the left, standing next to the stinger as big as she was.

"Come on, let's go now before the nevermore comes back!" Yang yells.

"Are we just going to leave her?" Pyrrha asks.

"Once we gain a bit of distance, she'll catch up. She runs really, really, _really_ fast, even without the use of her semblance," Yang answers.

"Come on, go already if you're so worried. The longer you take, the longer I have to distract this thing..." Ruby yells, followed by a near-whisper heard only by Blake, "Though this is rather enjoyable."

Leaping into the air, over the swiping pincers, Ruby lands onto the death stalker's back. It responds rather stupidly by trying to stab it with its stinger, only to hit itself.

Ruby laughs. She was laughing at the death stalker which pathetically had managed to hit itself in the process of trying to kill her. Not that it had really hurt itself, but it was still funny.

As they run, Weiss asks, "Is she _laughing_?"

"Yes," Yang answers. The cry of a nevermore can be heard overhead and tens of giant, black feathers rain down on the running group. Shielding themselves or simply avoiding, they continue to move.

Ruby, noticing that the rest of the group was already far enough to get back without this thing catching up, waves a hand at the grimm before sprinting off at top non-semblance speed after the group, easily outrunning the grimm and catching up to the group who were breathing heavily without breaking a sweat, something they were too busy running to notice.

As the group run from the nevermore and death stalker, they eventually reach a massive cliff with ruins in front of it.

As they take cover from the raining nevermore feathers and try to make a run for the cliff, thus completing initiation, the death stalker reappears over the small hills.

* * *

 ***This is a reference to the story _The Red Queen_ (and its sequel, _The Red Queen: Crusade_ ) by _Dravyn LeCrux_ , if you enjoy fairly dark stories you should read it and if you don't... well, you should check it out anyway and see if you like it.**

 **Please review and tell me what you think of the story.**

 **PS: I found it funny imgur,com/a/au44C**


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